Why the hostility?

It is interesting that some folks are so adamantly against legacy servers as if it is somehow going to hurt them. Obviously it will not hurt them because this idea is not suggesting to remove the current WoW release and replace it with the old ones. It is about installing a few legacy servers.

The suggestion that Blizzard does not have old releases in their archives is ludicrous at best. Every software company, including gaming companies, keeps every release in their archives. It is intellectual property. They will never erase them. I am sure Blizzard still has, and will always have, even the versions they developed before the very first closed beta.

And Blizzard has enough resources to install a few legacy servers many many times over. Moreover, people will play on those servers and thus generate revenue and sustain themselves. It may even help WoW with sub numbers, since once the players on these servers hit the end of the content some of them may upgrade to the current WoW.

Clearly, these cannot be the real reason. They are nothing more than cheap excuses. Let me try to guess what the real reason might be.

According to Blizzard, there are far more people who have played WoW but have quit at some point than there are who are currently playing (they said this when the game had around 10 mil subs). Since lots of people have been expressing discontent with the direction the game has taken for years, it is safe to assume a large chunk of these people must have quit because they were not happy with the evolution of WoW.

Now imagine Blizzard installing a few Vanilla/BC servers. Even a small fraction of those who quit (there must be easily 15-20 million of them) will be enough to populate a few servers at maximum level. Add to it that some current players might switch out of curiosity or some veterans who are still around might go to them.

So, now you have a situation where a few servers with old versions of WoW sitting at the top of most populated servers list. Can you imagine what an embarrassment it will be for Blizzard ? It can be interpreted as they screwed up big time with the direction they took the game to. Not good for the careers of people at Blizzard and not good for the relations with the shareholders. And what if this forces Blizzard to change direction towards the philosophy of those times ? (Nightmare scenario for panda fans!?!?)

I think, due to the high level of desire from folks about Vanilla/BC times which stubbornly has not been going away, both Blizzard and the die hard fans fear this embarrassment will follow the installation of legacy servers. Hence the hostility that is trying to hide behind some laughable excuses!

What do you think ?

(If you are going to start calling me names and demand the moderators close this thread and ban me, please just go to the next thread.)

1. Blizz does not believe there are enough people interested in utilizing this idea long term to justify the various costs necessary to bring it about. (see reference below for comments re “a small minority”)

2. Blizz feels this idea is counter to the nature of MMO’s; non-progression equates to stagnation and eventual boredom. (see reference below for comments re “it’s not a very good idea”)

3. The original game code does not exist in that form anymore. All the old data has been replaced, with the newer data which was not saved (archived) for later reuse. It was over-written and destroyed. “There is no switch to flip on the realms to roll back years of patches and changes…” (see extended Blizzard quote below). In keeping with the sentiment expressed in #2, above, it’s gone – never to return. Even if it were “recoverable” by other means it would still require lengthy and expensive rewrite, a task Blizzard has denied interest in. Which leads to…

4. They have no plans or desire to recreate the original version(s). They refer to the notion of attempting to do so as “a logistical nightmare,”… and in keeping with their stance in #1, above the time, money and resources required are prohibitive and unjustified. (see below for comments re “it really doesn’t get much use” and “it’s not as simple as people make it out to be”)

To paraphrase it all: “Too much cost, too little interest and it’s not what the game is about… we’re not doing it.”

Proponents are adamant it is a good thing and continue to post it (in various forms), sometimes multiple times a day, despite heavy resistance.

The movie industry:
“The earliest days of film were so much better; we really had fun and such a sense of adventure. We really had to work at understanding what was going on and those that couldn’t read the subtitles were just bad. We want special theaters that play only silent films (Vanilla), those were so awesome and we miss them so much. For those that want black and white “talkies” (BC) we can maybe have some that do those too, but no further. Technicolor (WotLK) is where the studios went wrong and this fancy Bullet-Time fx (Cata) junk is just taking the whole thing in the wrong direction…Blizz, fix it now! Give us our silent films back!”

The auto industry:
We want our Model-T’s back (Vanilla)… Henry Ford’s stuff was so awesome (blah, blah)…We could support maybe the Mustang (BC), but no further (blah, blah)… Datsun’s 280Z (WotLK) is where it all went wrong (blah, blah)…Chrysler Minivans (Cata) are just too bad to deal with (blah, blah)…

Proponents are asking either for (a) regression to the past where things were not better than they are now…and want to drag everyone else in the game with them… or (b) the ability to segregate themselves from everyone else so they can indulge in their nostalgia. Not only does the majority of the player base not want that, neither does Blizzard. Not enough people want it to justify the costs of doing it and… most importantly… it goes against the progressive vision the company -- and players -- have for the game as a whole.

You will have no better chance of getting Blizzard to do this than you would convincing the movie industry to revert to silent, black and white only films or the auto industry to revert to producing nothing but cars like the Model-T.

Proponents seem to believe that, despite the age of the game and the number of people who play, that they are --

1. The first person bright enough to have come up with this idea. They are wrong.

or

2. They seem to believe that Blizzard is:

a. Incompetent -- in that Blizz failed to do the research on this idea to determine if it is marketable (wrong).

b. Stupid -- in that Blizz did do the research and failed to interpret the data from such research correctly (wrong).

Blizzard has addressed this issue publicly many times. Take some time and read all that stuff and maybe you'll start to get an idea of what's involved.

Blizzard specific references on the issue:

A. We were at one time internally discussing the possibility fairly seriously, but the long term interest in continued play on them couldn't justify the extremely large amount of development and support resources it would take to implement and maintain them. We'd effectively be developing and supporting two different games.
Drysc (CM), Feb 21, 2008http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/6...lassic-servers

B. We occasionally see requests for us to open pre-TBC realms, or classic realms if you prefer. Lately there have also been requests for pre-WotLK realms, and I am sure that once the next expansion pack is released there will be requests for pre-Cataclysm realms as well. We have answered these requests quite a few times now saying that we have no plans to open such realms, and this is still the case today.

We have no plans to open classic realms or limited expansion content realms, and you should not expect to see the opening of such realms with the launch of Cataclysm either.

We realize that some of you feel that the classic game was more fun than the current game, and as a result would like to revel in nostalgia; the developers however prefer to keep the game moving forward as they want the game to continuously evolve and progress.
Vaneras (CM), Nov 28, 2009http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...igional-realms

C. We have no plans of making pre-TBC realms. This goes against the very nature of an MMO and would be a logistical nightmare. There's no switch to flip on the realms to roll back years of patches and changes, and we don't intend to invent one so that a very small minority of players can play what we feel would be an inferior cousin of the World of Warcraft of today.
Zarhym (CM), April 27, 2010http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/1...the-wow-killer

D. Question: The whole topic of classic servers has been popping up on the forums, always on yours - I assume with the release of Cataclysm there's this huge wave of nostalgia here because you can't play in the old world anymore. Is this something you might consider doing after the Cataclysm launch?

Chilton: Currently, my answer would be probably not. The reason I say that is because any massively multiplayer game that has pretty much ever existed and has ever done any expansions has always gotten the nostalgia of, "Oh God, wouldn't it be great if we could have classic servers!" and more than anything else that generally proves to be nostalgia. In most cases - in almost all cases - the way it ends up playing out is that the game wasn't as good back then as people remember it being and then when those servers become available, they go play there for a little bit and quickly remember that it wasn’t quite as good as what they remembered in their minds and they don’t play there anymore and you set up all these servers and you dedicated all this hardware to it and it really doesn't get much use. So, for me, the historical lesson is that it's not a very good idea to do *laughs* - it's a great idea to talk about.
Tom Chilton (lead game designer), Aug 20, 2010http://www.wowhead.com/news=166540/e...tails-and-more (approx. half way down page)

E. Never say never, but developing for and supporting multiple codebases (while possible) would very unlikely be worth it. It's really not as simple as people make it out to be. Those playing on a 'classic' server would still require support, and absolutely still request bug fixes, changes, additions, content, etc.

The notion that the game frozen in time with no patches, no new content, no changes, would be fun to play forever, is in my opinion a very clouded vision of how it would actually play out.Bashiok (CM), April 21, 2011 (emphasis added)http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2416153275#6

I. I work for a software company with corporate customers. Each of them has rather more invested in equipment than a PC gamer, and they like paying for upgrades even less.

Our products have been advancing technologically over time in a gradual fashion, so as not to lose the customers with the oldest equipment. However, things like operating system support and hardware version support are outside our control--which means we have to keep slowly advancing the requirements, and adjust existing code to match. Over time that means stuff eventually falls off the list of what we can support, because our code, gradually upgraded as it is, starts to require OS or hardware features the oldest equipment can't support.

We couldn't turn the clock back ten years, or probably even five, if we wanted to.

Blizz is no doubt in the same pickle. They've changed their database structure, upgraded the graphics, and likely done a lot of more subtle stuff over the last seven years that makes it fundamentally impossible to support Vanilla code, even assuming that code still exists in pristine form somewhere.

MOP will, as I understand it, very likely require at least a duo core CPU. That's another significant difference that can't be rolled back.

Therefore: what the Vanilla crowd is actually asking for is the development of new code to duplicate old code. That's not easy or cheap, and is going to compete directly for resources with development of current content. There would have to be a monumental ground surge of interest to make it feasible, an order of magnitude greater than what has ever been exhibited on the forums.

L. It's a line Blizzard has drawn from way back when, yet suggestions or requests for classic realms continue to pop up on the forums. Let me tell you here and now... don't bother. Blizzard will eventually just lock your thread or delete it entirely simply because it's not in their best interests to provide such a service.

N. The following is a list of 22 threads posted on the issue from Feb 10, 2013 through March 12, 2013 (just over 30 days). It demonstrates how frequently this topic is raised and how thoroughly it is rejected… every time.

Because, in the end, it STILL takes away resources and man power to make these "legacy" servers. by doing so they affect everybody else negatively.

No, it really doesn't. Server maintenance is minimal, legacy server service support can be easily folded into general service support, and it would have absolutely zero impact on development of future patches and programming. The only argument I can see is that people might choose to stay on a legacy server and not get the newest expansion... but when subs are dropping as much as they are now, that's a weak case to make.

But I do know that players can't demand anything in terms of the game, and that Blizzard can do whatever they want.
They don't have the old versions as far as I know, cause I remember them saying that.

But I would have to imagine that they know what they are doing and that they have a pretty good idea of what brings revenue and what doesn't.

I'm not going to call you names... I'm simply going to point out Blizzard has said NO. Blizzard has said they are moving FORWARD... not backward... legacy servers are BACKWARD...

I'll support legacy servers on the condition that those that demand them FUND THEM... that means put up the cash, UP FRONT. I recommend this so it becomes resource neutral for Blizzard.

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